"Keep one dance for a friend of mine," she says, earnestly.
"Let me keep one dance for you."
"That, too, if you wish it; but I have a little friend here to-night, and she knows nobody, and, though I know you won't like it" (calling to mind again his supposed disparaging tone at the concert), "still, for my sake, be kind to her."
"I shall be nectar to her, if you entreat me in that fashion. Who is she?"
"Well, she is only a governess," begins Clarissa, beating about the bush: she is quite determined, nevertheless, that Georgie shall not be neglected or left out in the cold at this her first ball.
"A governess!" says Dorian, unthinkingly. "Oh, Clarissa, don't let me in for that. I don't mind them a bit; but I'm afraid of them. She is safe to ask me if I don't think Murray's Grammar the most artfully compiled book in the world, and I shan't know what to say in reply."
"You need not be afraid of my governess," says Clarissa, earnestly: "she will not trouble you about Murray or his Grammar."
"Of course, if you say I must dance with her, I must," says Branscombe, with a heavy sigh.
"I see her now. Come, let me introduce you to her."
"But not for this dance. I am engaged—I am, I give you my word—to the prettiest girl in the room,—the prettiest child, I should say."